Multiple Relationships

[from DRINKING - A Love Story © 1996 by Caroline Knapp, p137:]

---I am consistently amazed to hear women talk about their multiple relationships with addictions, the way they combine two or three, the way they shift from one to another, so naturally and gracefully you might think they were changing partners in a dance.  Addictions segue into one another with such ease:  a bout of compulsive overeating fills you with shame and sexual inferiority, which fills you with self-loathing and doubt, which leads you to drink, which temporarily counters the self-hatred and fills you with chemical confidence, which leads you to sleep with a man you don't love, which leads you circling back to shame, and voilá:  the dance can begin again.  The dance will begin again, for the music is always there in women's minds, laced with undertones of fear and anger, urging us on into the same sad circles of restraint and abandon, courtship and flight. 

[DRINKING is another book on my reading list; but i merely opened pages at semi-random somewhere beyond halfway through the book today, and this passage popped out at me.  I'm certainly no expert at this kind of thing, but i imagine that some similar dynamic exists for men and addictions too.

Do your best to feel good about yourself, and enjoy the sun.]